


Revenant

by Kat Allison (katallison)



Category: The X-Files
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1997-11-01
Updated: 1997-11-01
Packaged: 2017-11-06 04:33:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/414735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katallison/pseuds/Kat%20Allison





	Revenant

I've never liked having other people around me when I'm working. In my days with the FBI, such intrusions were inescapable, a downside of the job. Since I've been on my own, though, I avoid them when I can. There are a few exceptions: Catherine was always welcome to be with me, back in the days when that was something she wanted; Jordan, as much of a distraction as a child her age can be, keeps the work in some kind of perspective, which I value. But as for others—even Peter's restrained presence rasps on me, watching, demanding; even Bletch used to get on my nerves at times, though I'd give anything to have that irritation back now. 

Somehow, though, this man is different. Not that he's easy to ignore, but he doesn't disturb my work. It's like having a cat in the room, one that sits and watches, silently, with eyes that take in everything and give nothing away. Like a cat, he is remote. Possessed of a mysterious assurance, a presence that bristles out around him like a dense fur. And like a cat, I think, letting the metaphor take me further than I intended, like a cat he is beautiful to look at. Quick, graceful, lithe. Doing nothing to solicit attention, still he invites touch, the way a cat will lure a stroking hand. Not that that is something you contemplate doing, I instruct myself. 

He is sitting rather close just now, as it happens, watching the images scroll past on my computer. A cat near the birdfeeder, I think, intent, with ears pricked forward. I need to turn my own attention away from him and onto the details of the case, but it's difficult to remain focused when the case is, essentially, over. Jim Rago is dead, apparently for good this time, and the information that Mulder provided gives us reason to believe that with his death we can close not just the recent murders but seven more long left unsolved. But still, he focuses in on the monitor, looking for the one small item that will allow him to reach closure, in his own mind, on his own theory, the one that he's refused to explain even to me. "Just my usual lunatic bullshit," he says dismissively, when I ask. "Confabulation. Brain bubbles. Rapture of the deep. Spook-a-rama." 

He's quoting the stock catchphrases that I heard floating around the Bureau to describe his work back in the days when I was there. Oddly, our paths never crossed back then; I wonder now if in fact there was some influence keeping us apart. Then he was gone from the BSU and into some odd fringe project I knew nothing about; and then I was gone from the Bureau and from DC, off to the other side of the continent, and certainly never thought I'd hear of Mulder again, let alone meet or work with him. 

Life is full of surprises, though, a cliche whose banal facticity I'm coming to hate more with time. I want no more surprises in my life. I'm struggling just to keep afloat in the turbulence that's overtaken me these last months. 

* * *

Nothing in this case has come as a surprise to me. I've seen weirder ones— crazier UNSUBs, more twisted MOs, sicker mutilation and presentation rituals — even back in the BSU, well before the X-files. And I've seen weirder things than a guy come back from the dead. What's a surprise, and what I'm having a little trouble getting used to, is working with someone who's close to the same point on the wack-out continuum as I am. There are very few of us out here; or, I should say, very few who have Frank's degree of intelligence and balance. The novelty of the whole thing has almost made this bastard of an assignment worthwhile. 

I hate being called in on cases that the locals have already chewed to death. Skinner knows that perfectly well, but I think he wanted to get me out of DC for a while, out of his hair, what little he has left. Or maybe Scully asked him to get me out of her hair—what little she has left, I can't stop myself from thinking. Damn it. She's doing well, I recite to myself, she's getting better, she needs peace and quiet to cope with the treatments, you need to leave her alone and let her recover. Easy to say, damn hard to do. It's been impossible to avoid the excuses to stop by her place, to bring her a CD or drop off a magazine with an article I thought she'd enjoy, or update her on a case. She didn't need any of that, certainly not from me. 

So when Skinner handed me the file I didn't fight. Especially because I knew it was mostly my own fault anyway. No good deed goes unpunished. I'd heard about the Seattle killings and thought they seemed pretty routine. But one night, when I was zipping up and down the channels, trying to keep myself from calling Scully, I heard some new stuff on CNN that set off a buzzer somewhere. I called I guy I know out in the field office, and got some stuff that wasn't on CNN, then went in to the office and spent some time digging around, found what I was looking for, and about 2 a.m. I faxed it off to the Seattle PD, all covered with scribble notes and big arrows to guide the clueless. I knew they'd be sure to appreciate a wad of paper showing that someone precisely matching all details of their UNSUB's description and MO had been working in Maine seven years ago, and that they'd especially love a copy of his 1992 death certificate. And another one in Quebec, and a copy of _his_ 1995 death certificate. On a manic whim, I scribbled on the cover sheet "Recommend exorcism" and went home feeling pretty good. Count no day wasted in which you've managed to piss off some sector of officialdom. Even so, the Seattle office surprised me. They called Skinner well before noon our time, and much to my shock, and I'm sure his as well, their message was something other than "Tell Mulder to eat shit and die." 

So I flew out here like a good boy, all ready to be treated like one of Letterman's Stupid Pet Tricks. The Seattle PD was about what you'd expect, a touch more brittle maybe; they'd been through a lot of shit with this case. Trying to suss out their institutional pathologies and spot where they'd already fucked up took most of my attention at first, but from the start this man snagged in my mind like a burr. 

I didn't know what the hell he was doing there at first. He sure didn't look official, more like someone's weird uncle who'd wandered out of the woods. A small guy, at least next to the pumped-up SWAT beefcake strutting around the station. Quiet. Remote. Dressed like L.L. Bean-meets-the-Unabomber. That strange face, so worn, like someone who'd been beaten up from the inside; you know that book,"I Been In Sorrow's Kitchen and Licked Out All the Pots?"  _That's_ how he looks. The voice caught me the first time I heard it, that deep, hollow, flat voice, like James Earl Jones on quaaludes. Compelling. It only took a couple of those wretched Task Group meetings to notice that I never heard that voice say a single stupid or obvious or unnecessary thing, and that alone made me want to send him a dozen roses. But I still thought he was some kind of functionary, something in the bureaucracy. In the mass intro/handshaking orgy, I'd missed his name, which further confused things. 

And then somehow he maneuvers me into his car when we're all setting off on yet another happy outing of the Clusterfuck Caravan to view yet another carved-up body, and he starts talking. And listening. He'd not only seen the stuff I'd faxed, he'd read it carefully. And somewhere in here I finally get it clear that this isn't Frank Blmrph from the Department of Redundancy, this is Frank _Black_. As in, late of the FBI. Ex-profiler. Even I, disfellowshipped though I am from the inner circles and all Bureau grapevines, even _I_ have heard of this guy. And at the scene, after the uniforms and the photographers and the boys with the tweezers all leave, Frank and I keep talking. 

There's another Task Group meeting, of course, what else, but we play hooky and go back to his place, order in pizza, and he shows me some really amazing databases I'm probably not supposed to see, I in turn pull up some source documents that I know full well I'm not supposed to be able to access, thank you Frohike, and we put some things together, and by the time the sun comes up we have the scaffolding in place. That was before Rago "killed himself"—no, I'm not arguing with the official version, I want to get out of here before next year. I knew they'd find some way to fuck up that arrest. 

I'll never get within a hundred yards of the body, of course, no chance to verify anything. If Scully were here ... she's not, so screw it. I'd like to believe the guy'll stay dead this time, but—I don't know. All I can do, I guess, is keep scanning the news for the next forty years or so. I know what I'm looking for, at least. 

Anyway. This case is a wrap, there's enough on that souped-up computer of his to convince the SPD that their bad guy's defunct and they can tell the good citizenry it's safe to go back to swilling their coffee in their usual dysthymic torpor. I've never liked Seattle much; too grey, too dank, hits all the down buttons on my own personal mood elevator. But somehow ... although Christ knows Frank himself can be bleaker, even, than Seattle itself on the anniversary of Kurt Cobain's death after a month of drizzle and a ten-game Sonics losing streak, even so, somehow I'm having—fun? Not fun exactly, but there's a weird jazzy rush in working with this guy, trading riffs back and forth on a level that the rest of the band can't even hear. This is so rare. Only with Scully have I had something like this, at the very best moments, ( _Only with Scully?_ Shut up, I tell myself), and even then with her it's more like a take-no-prisoners game of racquetball, an unending contest where if I don't watch the ball every second I'll take a hard lob right in the nuts. Here it's been more like—I don't know, "harmony" isn't the word, too soupy. Counterpoint, maybe. Two melodic lines, independent, intertwining, complex, forming pattern and coherence, synergistic. One plus one equaling nine point three, or something. Jesus Christ, how often do I even get to just talk to someone. Just talk, without running every word and every idea through the tox screen first. 

I wish I felt safe enough to tell him everything I thought about this case, about Rago and his death. That would be a great conversation, but even if I could trust him, it'd put him at too much risk. 

I wish I felt safe enough to tell him everything, period. 

* * *

I'm still flipping through the hundreds of hits Mulder's query string pulled up, hardly even seeing them myself any more, when the cat suddenly pounces. "There. Stop." Never taking his eyes from the screen, he touches my hand, the one moving the mouse, halting it; and then he leaves his fingers there, resting on my hand, while he reads the text. 

I've noticed this in him before; in anyone else I'd interpret it as a masterful use of proxemics, a deliberate violation of personal space with the intent of establishing and maintaining power. But in him, I don't think it's conscious. I don't know for sure, and I'm reluctant to speculate, but I find myself wondering if, at those moments when his mind is wholly occupied elsewhere, his body strays from its usual constraints and reaches out, thoughtlessly seeking the contact it craves. 

Pushing that thought aside, and trying to ignore the distraction of his touch, I squint at the text on the screen, which describes a release of biohazardous material at a laboratory in Latvia. I don't see what connects this with anything we've discussed so far. "This is what you were looking for?" I ask, and I know my voice sounds skeptical. 

He doesn't say anything for a moment, then comments, with apparent irrelevancy, "Rago had a visa for Latvia. Not here, when he was in Maine." He pushes his chair back wearily. "Can you print that screen for me?" 

I realize that that's as close as I'll get to knowing what connections he's made, and that I really don't care about knowing more. I'm too tired. It's enough for me to know that these killings, at least, are over. 

I realize, too, as I hit the "print" button, that the end of the case means his departure back to Washington. I hadn't let myself know until this evening how quickly I've become used to his company. How much I've started enjoying his bizarre humor, his sudden intergalactic leaps of mind, his guerilla battles with the SPD hierarchy. How much pleasure I take in his presence. With him gone, this rented house will be entirely empty again. I'll no longer be able to distract myself from the huge holes in my life. 

* * *

 I lean back and stretch, glancing over at him. He's got that stone-faced look again. This case clearly bothered him, but something else is going on with him as well. 

The one goal I didn't accomplish while I was out here—well, apart from my dream of breaking into Bill Gates's mansion and cross-wiring his internal security cameras into the city's public-access cable feed—the one thing I didn't manage was to get Frank to laugh, just crack him up, just once. This hurts me in my pride. I'm not saying everyone groks my sense of humor—Skinner I've given up on—but shit, if I can get Scully to laugh, even when she's determined she's not going to, I know I've got some talent. And it's not as if the guy has no sense of humor himself. It's there, but it's like a sip of Roederer Cristal straight out of the freezer, bone-dry and ice-cold. 

It became a head game, one that I put a lot effort into. The Challenge Cup. I had to crack that Ingmar Bergman facade of his. And I almost did it once, damn it, not with any of my fabulous repartee, but during a horrendously dull Task Group meeting, when some dumbass from Community Relations was burbling on and on about the "public posture" we would all have to take. I caught Frank's eye and gave him a little of the ol' Scully eyebrow thing, and I almost had him. But then he pulled the nose back and leveled it out and resumed normal altitude. Guy's got more self-discipline than—well, than I do. (Not that that's a bad thing, I reflect. A little self-discipline, applied at certain key moments in the past, would have—leave it alone. Leave that.) 

So—I may have to concede the game. I head back early tomorrow, after all. 

The unfinished game. The incomplete gestalt. Jigsaw puzzle with pieces missing. I hate the way my mind won't leave such things alone, keeps tugging and fiddling at them. Not a useful trait for someone whose life has nothing whole in it. But it seems I can't help trying to close the circles, pointless as the effort is. 

My eyes drift to Frank as he stands by the printer. Somehow, he fits into one of those incomplete puzzles I carry around in myself. I can feel it, the sureness that he would click into place like a magnet, with the right push of the fingertips. I just haven't been sure which puzzle, and I haven't let my mind dwell on it. But watching him now, letting my mind drift, I notice the angles of his body as he leans over the desk, the hooded eyes, the fine bones under the weathered face. The places where his clothes fit tight on him, what they reveal, what they hide. And it clarifies. The hum of awareness that's been between us from the start, the rapport, has moved southward out of my head, diffusing down through my body. I'm aroused even before I realize how startled I am. 

Well. This is weird. Very weird. I haven't even noticed a male since ... well, it's been a while. And I mean, after all, he's not my type. ( _And just what is your type, dickhead? Sociopathic murderers, would that be it?_ Shut up, I tell the voice, but it's on a roll: _Here's an honest, responsible, ethical guy. Decent, kind. Clearly not someone you could go for. Where'd be the thrill in that?_ Sarcasm is boring, I tell the voice.) Besides, all this is irrelevant. He's married, no doubt he's straight as a steel ruler, and in any event I'm out of here in about ten minutes. And besides (I realize I don't even know who I'm arguing with now) he's old, he's depressed, he's funny-looking— 

_Yeah, that's right, you stick with the pretty young boys. That's proven to be a great choice so far._

I send all combatants to their corners, but I can't sit still. I need to find some distraction. Something to look at besides him. 

* * *

 Waiting for the printer to warm up, he gets restless, roaming around the room, examining small objects. Inquisitive. He's seen the picture of Catherine and Jordan before, of course, but now he stops and picks it up. In anyone else this would annoy me, but there's something respectful in the way he handles it, carefully holding it by the frame so as not to smudge the glass. He studies the faces with the same focus I've seen him train on photographs in the case files. "Your family." It's a statement, not a question, and he doesn't glance over for my confirming nod. His gaze at the picture is so intense, I might as well not be in the room. 

I'm uneasy having anyone, even him, look at them that way. Abruptly I ask, "How about you? You have family?" 

"What?" He glances up briefly, his thoughts clearly elsewhere. "Um. No. I mean—my mom, but ... that's ..." He fumbles for words, then just shakes his head. "No." 

And I thought myself a loner. He looks so young for a moment, young and lost, I find myself asking impulsively, "So who takes care of you then?" 

Instantly I regret the question—how unlike me to ask that—but he seems unoffended, amused if anything. "That'd be Scully. My partner." 

"He's back in Washington?" 

"She. Dana Scully." He looks down. "She's on leave." Some force of feeling clearly hovers behind those words, but his face and tone of voice are both shouting _don't go there_ so I let the subject lapse. He returns to the photograph that he still holds. 

"How old is she?" he asks softly. 

"Jordan?" I'm assuming that's who he means, though he makes no response. "She's five. Turned five this spring." 

"I remember that age." His voice is so soft as to be almost gone, and as if in a trance he reaches out one finger, carefully, carefully reaching toward Jordan's face. The finger is trembling slightly. 

All of a sudden the visions hit me, blinding. The familiar flashes, the sense of being squeezed hard, and then the pictures, exploding as they always do, somewhere behind my eyeballs. A dazzling glare, and a little girl disappearing, shrieking in terror, calling for help. Jagged as lightning, and then gone. 

I must have moved or made a noise, because when I come back to the room he's looking at me, frowning. "You OK?" 

"Yes." I sit down heavily. 

I've told him about the visions—they seemed to interest him a great deal, more than they do me—but I don't tell him this one. It makes me uneasy. Always, they've come to me as the markers of great evil, great pain. I don't want to believe that he carries that around with him, but I don't know what else to think. 

He's still looking at me with concern, and he puts the picture down. "I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking. I heard one of the detectives saying something—" His tone is apologetic, and when he stops, looking contrite, it suddenly dawn on me that he thinks he's upset me. By talking about Catherine and Jordan. 

"It's OK," I say, but my reassurance is too hasty, and, I realize, false. The silence in the house, the emptiness, are like a heavy weight on my chest. I stand and turn away from him, leaning over the desk. 

"You live here alone now." The words by themselves sound cruel in their obviousness, but they're delivered with an empathic warmth that unravels me. He's a psychologist, I remember, this is professional SOP for him, but it's too hard to keep all my defenses riveted together. I want to talk to someone. No, I realize, I want to talk to him. No one else. 

"She's left me. She took Jordan. We're living apart. I don't know if we can fix it. I don't know how I'll stand it. Sometimes I think I've lost them forever. It was all my fault." 

"Hey. Frank." His voice is so gentle. I can feel him coming up behind me, and then a hand is resting on my shoulder. Before I can stop myself, I reach around and grab that hand, holding it in place. I hear myself saying, "I'm so damn lonely," in a scratchy squeezed voice, and I could kick myself. What a pathetic display. I have to regain control, but his hand is pulling on my shoulder now, turning me around, and he's looking at me. All that intensity, that force field of intelligence and energy, is focused in on me, and it's too much. I want it to mean more than it can. I can't stand to meet his gaze, but I can't move, so I let my eyes drop shut. For a long moment nothing at all happens, and then I feel a touch. His hand is moving with great care over my face, that ugly crumpled facade I show to the world. One finger traces down my cheek, then suddenly stops. 

* * *

 Several times when I've seen him in half-light, shadowed, a memory's jabbed at me, one I never took the time to track down. But now, touching those deep creases that bracket his mouth, memory cuts through the fog, and all of a sudden it's one of Mostow's victim's faces in my hands, and it's all I can do not to jerk away. Mostow, and my mind leaps to Patterson. Patterson, _shit_. The older man? The mentor? Is that what this is all about with Frank, on some level, this kinky jolt of excitement I feel at the thought of doing him? That'd be my working hypothesis, I have to admit, if someone else was telling me this. But I sure hope it's not; I know I'm a sick fuck, but not that sick, I trust. Just because they're both older, both professionals in my field, brilliant, damaged, doesn't mean they're equivalent in my mind, any more than Scully, just because she's younger and beautiful and my partner, is equivalent with—I kill that thought cold. Just then, he opens his eyes, picking up that something's wrong, and looks at me with such stricken remorse that I almost manage to forget my own egocentric preoccupations for a moment. "I'm sorry," he says, "I'm terribly sorry. I didn't mean to—" 

"Maybe not, but I did." I'm holding him lightly, and he doesn't make any effort to move away. I study him like this was an interrogation, noticing the acceleration in his breathing, watching the pulse in his throat. He's beautiful, I think, in his own strange way, in a way totally unlike—he's not at all pretty, not smooth, making no effort to charm. I'm so grateful for that. He's looking at me with hungry eyes, confused, full of need and pain. I've never seen him look like this before, and it pushes me past my last hesitation. I can't not respond to that look. Someone in my head, someone who sounds like Scully, is asking me _What are you doing, Mulder?_ but the question is easy to ignore. This isn't much more dangerous than going into an abandoned warehouse after a deranged cannibalistic mutant, is it? Hey, danger is my business. And my hobby, too, whatever. 

I move one hand, sliding it slowly up his shoulder to the back of his neck, stroking up through his hair, and I can feel a quick shiver running through him. Oh, yeah. The avalanche has definitely started moving, somewhere up there on the higher slopes. 

* * *

Can this possibly mean what I think it does? Am I giving in to wishful thinking, misinterpreting a gesture of pure friendliness? I'm paralyzed, terrified to presume wrongly. But then he moves his hand to my face and strokes a thumb very deliberately across my lips. I feel that gentle contact all through my body, everywhere, and I can't stop my mouth from coming open under his touch. I lean back heavily against the desk, grabbing the edge to keep from sliding down. 

I can't breathe. I shouldn't be here. I should have left, back when I could still make my legs work. Already I'm coming apart, and he's barely touching me. This is all wrong, in more ways than I can count. But I don't move away. 

* * *

This isn't anything I'd planned on doing, but then I do best when I don't try to plan too much. It isn't something that I even knew for sure I wanted, but I surprise myself sometimes. I'm not doing anything radical, not yet, just stroking his hair and face, running my hand down his neck and over his shoulders, slowly. Trying to get a feel for what he wants, whether I should back off or throw it into second gear. I want to pick up the pace, I'm getting really turned on watching how he's starting to respond to my touch. How expressive his face can be when he doesn't have the shields up. But he's got his eyes shut tight, like he's in that "I don't want to know this is happening" stage, which makes me smile—yeah, been there, felt that—and also scares me a little, because I don't know what he's seeing on the back of his eyelids, if it's one of his horror flicks and he's suddenly going to blow up on me, or what. 

* * *

For a moment, all I can see is how this would appear to an onlooker — a wrinkled old man and a beautiful young one. What's wrong with this picture? my mind sneers. I have nothing to give him. This can only be a pity fuck. I don't need that. I may not have my sanity but I have my pride. 

* * *

Frank pushes my hand away abruptly, and I stop. Watching. This could be cut and run time. He's almost flushed, looking less corpselike all the time, but he seems to be embarrassed as well as aroused. "This is all wrong." He's looking around the room, anywhere but at me. "I'm flattered, believe me. Very much. But—" He takes a breath. "Seattle is full of good-looking young guys. That's who you should be with. Not an old fart like me." 

_That's_ the problem? I want to laugh, but it might unsettle him further. Instead, I put one knuckle against his chin and gently turn his head to face me. Those deep eyes are filled with all the fear and doubt I never saw in them during the worst moments of the case. 

"I don't need any good-looking young guys in my life, trust me," and right on cue I feel the old tired pain twist through me for a moment, so familiar, so tedious that I don't even bother to salute it before kicking it into the corner. 

"Mulder," he says, and hearing my name in that deep voice, husky and uncertain now, jerks me back to the present, sending a jolt right through me and straight to my cock. Jesus, I'm getting turned on. "You deserve better," he tells me, earnestly, as if he's somehow rated my level of entitlement on some cosmic Twink Scale. Maybe he has, god knows. 

"I don't know what I deserve," I tell him. "I know what I want, though." I've opened my hand to take hold of his jaw, and I won't let him turn his face away. "Don't you know older guys can be sexy as hell?" I'm letting myself smile, now, enjoying the rasp of his stubble on my fingertips. "Clint Eastwood?" He's allowing me to move closer, relaxing into me. "Sean Connery?" I get my other hand on his waist, slide it around his back. "Ed Asner?" 

His eyes snap open. "Ed _Asner_?" 

I shrug. "Well. Tastes differ." 

He's staring at me, and then all of a sudden he's pitched forward onto my shoulder, and—yes, it is laughter, I wasn't sure for a moment. He's laughing like a lunatic, and I'm so pleased with myself I start laughing too ( _ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner_ )—and I have to see this, so I push his shoulders back, just a little, even as his hips move forward against mine. God, he looks a decade younger, unguarded, relaxed, _happy_ for god's sake. I see the openness, the welcome in his eyes, at the same moment I feel his cock stirring against my leg, and his hands closing around my back, pulling me in, and clearly the only thing left to do at this point is to kiss him. Which I do. 

* * *

When he pulls his mouth back from mine, I'm shaking. It seems odd, but I've never really kissed a man before, not this way. Done other things, sure. But to be this intimate—mind and body—to feel a connection this intense, this should only be happening with my wife. With Catherine. Guilt slithers through me, and then I push it away. She's not here. She chose not to be here. He is here, and he chose to be. That thought shatters the last of my self-control, and my hands move over his body, stroking him, the way I've wanted to from the beginning. He arches against my touch, almost purring. He wants this. Wants me. I have to trust that, as impossible as it seems. I know his detestation of falsehood, he couldn't lie to me with his body. And yet I still can't believe it, even as he again brushes that lush sensual mouth over mine. It's all I can do merely to accept it and not implode. To just let it happen. 

* * *

 I'm moving as slowly as I can, using my mouth to feel my way around his jawline and down onto his throat. When my lips encounter the loose sagging skin on his neck, he tenses up, makes a little sound of distress, and I know that he's doing it again, comparing himself with some hypothetical buff young stud that he hypothesizes I'd rather be with. And, to be truthful, for a moment that skin stops me, not the feel of it as much as what it represents. Mortality, the failing of the body, the long sag southward into the grave. I shut off that mind track, and pay attention instead to the feel under my lips; softness, a velvety yielding softness, like the skin on a puppy's belly. Vulnerable, the pulse throbbing under my teeth. And at the same time, hard ridged muscle of back and shoulders under my hands. The contrast excites me, and I suddenly drop my hands down to grab his ass, pulling him up off of the desktop and holding him hard against me. A different sound now, a deep, deep groan. I shift against him, trying to stroke his entire body at once, and finding his mouth again for a deep kiss. 

This is really good. I can't believe how long it's been. With a man, not since—well, of course, there were a number of men, as well as women, who knows how many of which, I can't remember, in that dead time. When Scully was gone, after they'd taken her, and after I lost—shut up. Don't go there, don't even touch the knob on the door to that room. But it's so hard, being with a man again, not to remember... 

I force my eyes open, reorient. Yo, fool. This man, the one right here, Frank, the one you like? The one you respect? He's quite enough for anyone and way better than you deserve. Treat him well. And I try to, I'm giving it my best shot. 

* * *

 Making love with Catherine was always about healing; becoming whole again, and reconnecting with all that is good, after having gone deep into evil. It was important that her world be very different from mine, very far away, and that I journey a long distance to come to her, each time. 

But this ... I haven't had to move an inch to come to this man, he's come to me, on the turf of our common pain. Those eyes, the ones that now that look into mine, heavy-lidded, seductive, have seen the same horrors as I, or worse; these hands that are touching me so knowingly have touched the bloodied and violated dead. It frightens me to want those hands so much and to know that part of the desire is the knowledge of where they've been. 

This time I don't have to make that laborious, transformative journey back, I don't have to struggle to become someone better than I am. Hell, I don't have to do a thing, I realize. I can stand here as I am, defiled, violent, tainted. Knowing that all these flaws are not just seen but accepted. That his arousal is not despite this but, at least in some small part, because of it. 

* * *

I'm working my way down to his chest, starting to unbutton his Pendleton wool shirt. The wool is rough against my face, and I grab the seams and slide it back and forth, rasping the fabric over his nipples, watching him push forward into the sensation. Oh, yes. I push the shirt up, burrowing under, giving each nipple a soothing lick, then pull out and tease them again with the wool. He's leaning back, eyes shut, and I hear him whisper, "God, you're good." 

_I was well taught._ The words ripple through me, but I push them back, them and the images they bring, and return to his body, nipples, chest hair, tender skin of belly, giving every pleasure I can. With every kiss and lick and bite trying to exorcise the shadowy tutor who hangs over me, moves with me. This is Frank, I tell myself. This is different, this is a man I can trust. It's an important cognitive skill, I think, dipping my tongue into his navel, to be able to separate objective knowledge from the subjective context in which it was acquired. And if I pay attention I have no difficulty staying aware of whose body this is; the aroma is different, the scars and marks are new to me, there's just the hint, at his sides, of little rolls of—not fat so much, but just the accumulation of age. 

Kneeling down, I note with satisfaction that the head of his cock is already poking out of his waistband—a good sign, I always think, that I'm doing something right. Carefully, I unfasten the belt, undo the button. But before I slide down the zipper, I pause and draw my tongue slowly over the tip, licking away the liquid pearl sitting there. Hearing him gasp, I smile, and start working his jeans down. 

* * *

It's been so long. Once I had thought my marriage would make this just a part of my past, and for a long time I didn't slip. But then ... it was one of the reasons I left Washington, although I didn't tell her that. There was a bathhouse, down on O Street. Once in a while, after a long day that had stretched well into night, or after an ugly case that had left me feeling sick and bruised, I would slip in, get a cubicle. Even with my homely face, I could usually find what I wanted there. It was always quick, silent, secret. It wasn't about love, certainly, or even pleasure. More like a ritual of self-defilement. Afterwards I would go home and shower, and slide in next to Catherine as quietly as possible. If she woke, I'd gently put her hands away from me. In the morning, we would make love, I would be redeemed yet again, and everything would be as it was before. A cycle I couldn't break. With time it all got more difficult to sustain, just as everything did in those days. 

But this is utterly different. He's driving those bleak memories out of my mind, and not even I can hang onto the belief that there's something wrong with this. It's not just that it feels so good, it's that it feels so—right. Trite but true. Any morality, any system of good and evil, that doesn't include this on the positive side of the ledger, is one that no longer has any coherence for me. But then everything is starting to lose coherence for me. This is good. This is good. It is. 

* * *

I savor this moment when, having finally worked him free of his clothes, I sit back, gently running my hands over and around and under him to keep him hard, and take a look at the big picture. He's braced against the desktop, sweating, panting, head tipped back, flushed a dusky red. I get loopy with the rush of thinking that I've done this to him, this distant, severe, cerebral man, I've brought him to this state. With a quick stroke of a finger, just one finger, on the taut muscle behind his balls, I can make him jerk and shudder and gasp. 

How anyone ever got the idea that this was the powerless position, I can't imagine, but I'm in no mood to pursue advanced gender discourse just now. Leaning forward, I put my hands on his hips and slowly, ruthlessly, inhale him. 

* * *

 His mouth on me is like nothing I've ever felt in my life. I've had enough sex, with enough different people, to know good from bad from mediocre, but this is amazing. It's not just the technical skill. And it's not just my awareness of who this is, though that awareness rocks me, I'm in awe of the mind that's housed inside this skull that moves under my hands, that's engulfing me. What's truly amazing is the eagerness, the lack of any hint of shame. There is no sense at all that he's doing me a favor. I can tell that this is what he wants as well. 

He works in a rhythm that somehow matches the pulse throbbing in my chest.  And at the same time as our bodies begin move in harmony, I can feel our thoughts beginning to mesh as well. I can feel myself opening up to him, the strange foreshadowing prickling in my mind. Not now, please, no, I beg, but the flashes explode, and then all of a sudden the strobic image lances through my vision: A slim young man, sprawled naked on a sofa, with a charming smile and cold green eyes and an erection. I'm unprepared for the surge of vicarious arousal that image delivers to me, slamming into my cock, even as rage lurches in my belly. For an instant, then gone. 

His, not mine, I remind myself. I hate that power, I don't want his phantoms here. 

That erotic jolt, brief as it was, has brought me close to the brink. I don't want this to end quickly, it feels so good, I need to find a way to make it last. But he's too skillful, working up my cock with an agonizing glancing lightness and then sliding his mouth down it hard and fast, taking me deep into his throat. I'm going to lose it soon. 

In desperation, I think for a moment of Catherine, but instead of shame and love, her image suddenly fills me with anger. Remembering the last time we spoke, her tight-lipped martyred manner, I find myself tensing up with rage, and I grab Mulder's head, twisting my hands in his hair, and drive into his mouth, slamming hard enough to choke him for a second. He gags, grabbing at my hips, and I'm hit with terror that in an instant he'll push away and stand and leave me. But he doesn't, he takes a stronger grip on me and then sucks harder, using his tongue and lips almost roughly. And that does me in. I thrust hard, brutally, feeling him meet me and take me, swallowing me deep, welcoming each lunge, and then I'm exploding, the flashing lights in my brain, oh shit, not again, but then I see nothing, no strobe, no visions, just darkness. 

* * *

Before, I could stay focused, when I was touching or kissing him, looking at him. I could keep a grip on who was who. I've done my best to keep it clear. But now, with his cock halfway down my throat and my face buried against his belly, blinded, I begin to lose that distinction. I begin to forget that it's Frank's cock, it starts to become _his_ instead, hard and cruel and imperative. And where I'd expected Frank to be gentle, tentative, maybe even a little passive, he's forceful, grabbing my head and fucking my mouth, and it's so much like—I can't breathe, there's something sitting in my chest like a boulder, and I can't stop myself from responding just the way I used to, just the way he used to like, sucking him hard, and he likes that, oh god yes, it's him, shuddering in my arms, arching and stiffening in my mouth, swelling under my teeth and tongue, again and again I plunge down on him, he's about to come—who?—I can't tell, time is caving in on me, years and miles collapsing like a black hole, and all I know is I want him, I want to taste him, feel his pleasure, feel him filling me, knowing I can make him come, any time, anywhere, any way he wants to. And then it's happening, I feel that tightening and throbbing I know so well, that rich salty pungent savor filling my mouth— _yes, fuck yes, come for me, do it, I've missed you so much_ —and I hear him shout, crying out something wordless— 

And it's Frank's deep voice, it's Frank whose cock is already starting to soften against my tongue, Frank's hands loosening in my hair, and the world fractures inside me. I kneel there for a long moment, motionless, and then I gently pull away, releasing him. Automatically licking him clean. Leaning my forehead against his hipbone. 

I feel like I've been dropped off a ten-story building. And no, I did not bounce when I hit the ground. But I can't—this is my friend, I led him on, I seduced him, and I can't just sit here and hyperventilate. So I stand up, slowly, my legs feeling like something made out of twist-ties. I lean against him, nuzzling into his neck, kissing it gently, but I can't really feel his body against mine. It's as if there's a layer of ectoplasm between us, clinging to my body like saran wrap, and I have a sudden numb certainty that, no matter where I go, it will always be there. 

* * *

When I come back to myself, it's with a scorching sense of shame. Bastard, I tell myself, pulling my pants up and fastening them, covering myself. She was right to leave you. You're a violent, evil person. I pull him to me, holding him, stroking his hair over and over. He's not looking at me, not moving, not talking. Trembling. You used him like he was a twenty-dollar whore in an alley. Asshole. 

I need to do something for him, give him something back. But he's limp against my thigh, and when I try to touch him he moves slightly, away from my hand. 

You fuckup. If I could cry, I would now. I've damaged everyone I've ever come close to. 

Then he does pull back to look at me, and he's smiling, not a big smile, not a very convincing one either. But making the effort. "Frank," he says, and I get the strangest sense that he really needs to say my name, as if that were an issue needing clarification. He lowers his head again. "Thank you," he whispers into my neck. 

"How can you—you don't—" I'm not coming up with sentences. "Thank _you_ ," I finally manage, although that's not nearly adequate, and I'm not sure that it's even accurate. "You're not the one who should be thanking me. On the contrary." That's closer, pedantic as usual, but the best I can do. 

He shakes his head slightly, his face still burrowed into my neck. Maybe he just can't stand to look at me. "It helped." Can that be what he said? I move him back a little, wanting to see his eyes, and he's willing to meet my gaze, but his is blank. The cat eyes again, revealing nothing. "I learned something." 

"You don't need to learn a thing. Trust me." The good-old-boy temptation to make a dirty joke of the whole thing overtakes me, even though I feel like a clumsy idiot a moment later. 

The words die down between us, and for a minute it's just quiet, silent in the house, crickets outside, a car somewhere off in the distance. I have no idea what time it is except late. "Do you want to stay here tonight? Get some sleep?" I would treasure having him next to me through the night, waking up with him next to me, having —well, hell, having any warm body to hold would be a gift, but his would be ... He's shaking his head, though. 

"I have a 7:15 flight out." He clears his throat. "You need some sleep, not someone lurching around at 5 a.m." 

"OK." I can't blame him for wanting to get away from me. No way I could have ever deserved him, even for a night. And you seem to forget, a voice reminds me, that you're still a married man. Sure you fell, you jumped the tracks here, but all the more reason to get back on. Get control of yourself. You can still be saved. I don't know whose voice this is, but I'm terribly afraid that it's mine. 

I let him go, and he walks over to the armchair, picking up his jacket. Moving like a somnambulist. "Mulder. Are you OK to drive?" 

He makes a small dismissive gesture. Suddenly I realize what's in his movements; not fatigue, but a control so rigid and absolute that he has to ask his body for every move before he can perform it. Like a robot. 

He robot-walks to the door, pauses. "I'll ... " Then he just turns away. "Take care." 

I stand there, hearing his car start up, hearing the gravel grind as he drives off. The engine sound fading into distance. 

There seems nothing to do but turn off the lights and go lie down. I could get drunk, I suppose, if that were the kind of thing I do. Maybe it is, I don't know any longer, but the idea doesn't appeal. Walking over to the desk, I see the sheet in the printer output tray. Damn. He forgot to take it with him. 

I pick it up, but my eyes are almost too gritty to read anything, and I don't have my glasses. Latvia. Huh. I consider the procedures involved in FedExing it to his office, even try to compose in my mind a note to scribble on a Post-It ("Mulder. You forgot this. Hope all is well there. Everyone who was killed here is still dead. Love.") Then I crumple it up into a tight ball and toss it into a corner. 

The night will pass somehow. Tomorrow, or the next day, someone else who is alive and thoughtless right now, right at this moment sleeping peacefully, or making love, happily certain that many more mornings will come, that person will have been slaughtered. My phone will ring, and I'll be back on another job. With any luck, though, this time I'll be working alone. I prefer it that way, actually. I've never liked having others around when I have to work. 


End file.
